Introducing a new application for communities with 2000+ ecobricks: modular, interactive, open spaces. Our installation, in the center of the Urban Social Forum, served as a place for participants to mingle, read, chit-chat, prepare their presentations, check their phones and most of all… play!

The banners around the space served to invite participants to make the space their own and to inform about ecobricks, about GoBrik, about modules, and about the Open Space philosophy. Participants were able to arrange the modules as needed– either to sit with friends, or to play and make new ones.

Two months ago, I was sitting in a Starbucks, when I was struck with the thought “We need to make ecobricks as cool, as funky, and as clean as this Starbucks”. One of the essential concepts of the ecobrick movement afterall is to transcend the concept of ‘trash’ all together. I’ve written about this extensively. It is also the main reason why we don’t use the word ‘trash’ on our site and we clean and dry our plastic before putting it into a bottle.

What would more redeem the concept of ‘trash’ plastic, than to put it to use in mall, an airport, a main street– just like a Starbuck Cafe? And, just like a cafe, wouldn’t it be awesome if the ecobricks could serve as a spot for folks to sit, to lounge, to chat, and to work? It occured to me, that indeed, ecobrick modules would be perfect for creating such a space, a space potentially even cooler than a Starbucks.

And thus, over a quiet cup of coffee, the idea for Ecobrick Open Spaces was born!

Shortly afterwards, we were invited to present ecobricks at the 2019 Urban Social Forum in Solo, Indonesia. All they wanted from us was a talk. I realized however, that this was the perfect opportunity to try out the ecobrick Open Space concept. With the help of our GEA Ecobrick Trainer network, we were able to mobilize about 150 modules (over 500 ecobricks!) for the forum. The folks at the forum were enormously supportive as they realize the awesomeness of the idea (their motto afterall is ‘another city is possible’). They helped us transport the modules from Jogja, to print our info banners, and cover our hotel while there.

A big thanks to our Jogja trainers, to JPSM, to Ibu Sufi and Mbak Ina for personally lending us their modules. Thanks to Marimas for sending their modules and attending our talk. Thanks to Pak Har for the help pulling it off.

As you can see in the photos and the video, the concept for the Open Space is simple, yet pretty revolutionary: an interactive social space that can be built up, taken down, and built up again by visitors. Unlike a Starbucks with its nailed down tables and fixed couches, the space is already create. Visitors are just that, visitors. The Open Space however changes all that. The visitor becomes the participant, the creators, the curator of her own experience. Oh… and that funky space? Its all made with plastic (once known as trash, but now very much cool!).

]]>http://russs.net/openspace/feed/0Lost Species Day with Singapore Friends & Foresthttp://russs.net/dark-forest-stay/
http://russs.net/dark-forest-stay/#respondFri, 07 Dec 2018 02:22:30 +0000http://russs.net/?p=4128Last week, I was in Singapore to visit a grand tree in the jungle.

Singapore is known for its modern urban experiences. But last week, for four nights, giant lizards, turtles and bees were my neighbours while I camped near a giant banyan tree in a dense forest on the island. What was meant to have been a trip to renew my passport morphed into a solemn and sad, sacred and surreal, re-connection with the wild.

When it became clear I wasn’t going to be able to renew my passport because of a forgotten ID, I extended my stay under the tree, so that I could participate in Rememberance Day for Lost Species event on November 29th. Several of my Singaporean friends have been attending eco-film festivals, where they have been saddened by movie after movie documenting animal tragedies. Lamenting, they had prepared over two weeks a ceremony to mark this international day.

Residing in the jungle, contemplating the tree and my varied animal neighbours, the day gained a whole new depth of meaning.

More species are going instinct than ever before. We live in a time that has been dubbed the ‘Sixth Extinction’ (check out the book by that name) that is right up there with the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs.. Right now– as in right this moment– species that have been been around for ages (literally Ages), are disappearing though over-hunting, habitat loss, and habitat change. Apparently, the rate of species loss is higher than it has been in hundreds of millions of years.

I choose to set my tent up in the jungle because of a singular Banyan tree that I some friends introduced me to a few months ago on the forested outskirts of the Ground Up-Intiative. GUI is an attempt by a collective of Singaporeans to maintain some gardens, forest and facilities for folks to reconnect with the land. The banyan itself, is one of the most amazing trees that I have ever met. The tree itself is over 40 meters in diameter. No typo: 40 meters! Its root mass spreads out in a mighty mandala of tubular roots. Its central core is roughly 10 meters in diameter. This core however, is not a solid tree trunk, rather a loose half moon cluster of dozens of sturdy, pipe-like trunks. An unlike other Banyan trees, it is not a densely packed core, there are several meters between each trunk. The tree is thus imminently climbable! One can go wayyy up, or just climb around horizontally in every direction on an interlace of thick vertical and horizontal trunks.

The cluster itself is resting on an intricate mesh of tiny roots that actually guide a stream into itself. The mesh, like a giant spongy mass of noodles, is so dense and intricate that I couldn’t help think of it as some sort of central neural mass at the heart of the tree. Indeed, with its lofty span, it holds presence, sensing and aware of everything happening above and below.

Alas, this amazing entity’s days are surely numbered.

The city encroaches on all sides.

Its living its a last chapter– it’s story a parallels of so many extinct and soon to be extinct species.

Almost no one I met, even the staff and long-term volunteers on the property where I was staying knew about the tree. It is tucked into an obscure corner of property on government land that is managed by no one. On one side is a massive 40 million dollar development. Cranes and tractors and trucks of all kinds work away unseen 20 meters over a high concrete barrier. And on the other side maybe 50 meters away another crane and construction site. From the branches of the tree you can see the MRT swish past.

One day, some nameless worker on a bulldozer, tired from too many shifts, will bring the tree down in a crunch of wood. No one will notice as its existence is snuffed out– like a candle in a midnight cathedral… flickering in rush of air… and.. darkness. A silent end to a grand entity. Just as the ancient million-year genetic lineages of the dodo, Steller’s sea cow , the Western black rhinoceros, Passenger pigeon, the quagga, and countless known and unknown contemporary species are silently disappearing.

“Here, in the fall, large flocks of pigeons fly,
So numerous, that they darken all the sky”

– Thomas Makin, Pennsylvania, on the estimated billions of Passenger Pidgeons that still populated North America in 1729.

The ritual my friends held was somber and joyful. We were happy to see old friends, yet sad and solemn as we rested our thoughts on the great tragedy of our age. The mindfully crafted ceremony was an acknowledgement of something unspoken, something that we have all privately lamented. To do so collectively, together, finally, was helpful, dare I say… invigorating.

The process empowered us to ponder and realize our place in it all. We aren’t so different after all, from the guy on the bulldozer, trying to make ends meet, make his paycheck, just doing his job, part in the system, taking down some bush to make way for growth and progress.

My friend Mel, who lead the ceremony observed wisely the real tragedy of course is not that this tree, these species, are ending (everything, everywhere, and every time comes to its end). The tragedy is that it is our unconsciousness of their majesty, their connection to us and to others, that is the driving force behind the carnage.

The urge and drive for survival, for individuals and a species, is one of the most powerful creative drives on the planet. What if our drive for survival included the awareness that we couldn’t live without everyone else?

Wooohoo… we were able to do this show case and movie yesterday of how ecobrick modules can make just about anything! With Team Kebonmanis in Cilacap, Indonesia we show how they can build up, take down, and build again. Make a tower, an arch, a stage! Tons of fun and surprisingly practical.

]]>http://russs.net/dieleman-lego-modules-in-action/feed/0Breakthrough Ecobrick Connection Innovation!http://russs.net/breakthrough/
http://russs.net/breakthrough/#respondFri, 16 Nov 2018 14:09:02 +0000http://russs.net/?p=4084For the last five years, I’ve been trying to figure out a reliable, sturdy technique for connecting ecobricks without the need to buy anything— to rely on nothing but used, local, and globally abundant materials. And today… breakthrough!

Cutting a used motorcyle innertube to make elastic rings.

Ecobricks are themselves made with nothing but used, local, and globally abundant material. This is what makes them so viral as a fundamentally non-capital technology. Alas, we’ve had to rely on silicone for the making of modules. This isn’t so bad– silicone is non-petroleum, non-toxic and easy and cheap to find just about anywhere.

But, it’s not perfect.

I was reminded of this yesterday visiting the remote community of Kampung Laut in Central Java. This community was hard pressed to put their ecobricks to use because of the cost and difficulty to source silicone. The situation revived my innovative fervour!

Success! The first tire rubber ring band module is solid.

I was reminded me of the wisp of an idea that has come out of my ongoing collaboration with bottle master Budi Boleng Santoso. He and I have been cutting up used motorcycle inner tubes– which happen to be the perfect diameter for enveloping glass bottles – for our Earthbottle project. I thought to myself… could a cut inner-tube-ring manage to envelope two ecobricks? If so…. perhaps we could connect ecobricks into modules in a whole new way.

Using the rubber from inner tubes to wrap and bind ecobricks together isn’t new. Folks have been doing that for years. The trouble is that no matter how tight you wrap up the ecobricks with the rubber, no matter how tight you tie them, you just can’t get the module tight enough to be 100% sturdy. I have observed the inadequacy of such wrapping in my visits of ecobrickers in Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, and my own experiment in Indonesia and the Philippines. And I saw such failed modules yesterday in Kampung Laut.

Today, with our ecobrickers friends in Kebonmanis here in Cilacap Central Java, instead of cutting the tires into long strips as before, we cut the tube into rings. We then used these rings to bond two 600ml bottles together with two rings, on the top and bottom. Then we connected a third bottle, top and bottom (four rings), to the first two. The resulting bonds were not just super tight, but the rubber in between each bottle stopped any sliding!

Success!

We moved on and connected 12 ecobricks in this way to make a triangle module. Success again! I could sit and even stand on the module without any sliding or disruption of the pattern.
The idea/technique is so simple. It is pretty crazy that it took five years to get to it. Alas, that’s the thing with breakthroughs that simplify (rather than sophisticate). They seem straightforward and easy, yet they are the hardest, the rarest, the most ephemeral and sublime of innovative arrivals!

Be sure to ecobrick any excess clippings from your snipping of inner tubes.

Be sure to ecobrick any excess clippings from your snipping of inner tubes.

The possibilities are actually endless!

One can connect ecobricks in this way to create modules of any size, flexible boards and solid planks! One should be able to use either bicycle, motor bike or car inner tubes to connect bottles of different sizes.

Comparison between Silicone and Tire Band Connecting on key principles:

Waste in application: 9.5/10 (and left over clippings can be ecobricked)

I feel this has the potential to revolutionize ecobrick and bottle building applications, and further ignite ecobricking around the world. I will have to follow up with some sketches and our teams around the world can start experimenting and playing around!

]]>http://russs.net/breakthrough/feed/0Ecobricks Server Crash & Burnhttp://russs.net/server-crash-burn/
http://russs.net/server-crash-burn/#respondMon, 22 Oct 2018 05:03:22 +0000http://russs.net/?p=4071What a crazzzy week. We’re getting an unprecedented deluge of interest in ecobricking from the UK the last few days. It turns out that news stories covering problems with the managing of plastic in the UK have made headlines this week. And so too the stories of folks in the UK solving plastic for themselves!

Consequently, our Ecobricks Global and Ecobricks UK Facebook pages have grown by thousands and tens of thousands of followers in a matter of days. Our ecobricks.org server slowed to a standstill because of the traffic. Our hosting company took down our sites because they thought we had a virus or DoS attach. I’ve had to ditch all other endeavours this week and to focus on getting our site and app back online… It’s been hit and miss, but Finally, good news… today ecobricks.org and gobrik.com are 90% back online! Yeay!

Thank you to our online team who have been busy fielding questions and emails from new ecobrickers. Thanks to our UK ecobrickers for their patience as we’ve worked to get the site back up online to help them out.

]]>http://russs.net/server-crash-burn/feed/0Yesterday we picked up the plastic. And now?http://russs.net/and-now/
http://russs.net/and-now/#respondSun, 30 Sep 2018 04:31:41 +0000http://russs.net/?p=4043Around the world, folks have been cleaning things up. Thousands of clean-ups have picked up thousands of tons of plastic. Hurray! I am glad. After all, plastic causes all sorts of problems when it is loose in the environment. However…

What now?

First, what now to do with all the ‘trash’ that has been picked up? Right now it is sitting in garbage bags that, most likely, will be brought to a dump site. But how different is that ‘dump site’ or ‘land fill’ from the field, shore, or forest where the plastic was picked up? After all, it was only a few decades ago that the land fill was itself a field or forest, shore or river ravine.

An Ocean Ecobrick is one way to transform ocean plastic into a practical and re-usable building block.

But, I am glad we’re talking! I am glad that these issues are out of the dark and we are talking about plastic.

Plastic, as a material is not evil — it is made from atoms and molecules like everything else. Plastic as our creation, like any technology, is a reflection of our civilizational stage of consciousness development. Looking in this mirror, we can see our pubescent quirks. We have much to learn, and big choices to make. We can see that we’re at a tremendous moment of making choices about who we want to be.

That said, I believe that this plastic stage is a grand opportunity to choose who we want to be on Planet Earth — both individually and collectively.

I observe that each piece of plastic, each straw, each acetate-filter-cigarette-butt is a grand opportunity! Global plastic clean-ups, corporate lobbying and banning plastic straws and plastic bags are all important endeavours. Vastly more so, is the personal, existential, moment-by-moment choice that you and I have with each plastic bag, cigarette, razor, and straw that passes through our moments. When we throw away, recycle, or in any way hand off our plastic, we perpetuate the very industrial systems that are at the root of the waste and pollution problem.

Or we can keep our plastic. We can claim it, and we can take responsibility for each piece, count it, clean it, and keep it out of the old and failing global industrial systems and put it to use locally.

In my home, no plastic departs!

Every month, my partner and I weigh our net consumed plastic down to the gram. Our goal is to mindfully track our consumption, and steadily reduce each month what we consume. The plastic that we do consume, and the plastic we gather from our neighbours we pack into a bottle to make an ecobrick. We have used ecobricks to build our garden, our table and chairs. We log our ecobricks each month on the GoBrik.com app. We review the ecobricks of others around the world and earn Brikcoins for each gram of plastic removed from the biosphere. We use these Brikcoins to pay our friends and neighbours for food, services and other things.

Indeed, plastic is something to pick up. However, it is time to reconsider what we do with it afterwards. Plastic is precious, both in its absence from the environment, and in what we can do with it next.

Along this line, I am proud to release this how-to video on the making of an Ocean Ecobrick (in Indonesian Ecobrick Samudra). This is my open source (cc-by-sa) that i am proud to say fully embodies regenerative, cradle-to-cradle, mandalic principles to allow anyone anywhere to transform plastic (especially the plastic that we’ve picked up on beaches!) to be transformed into a practical and re-usable building block.

It’s in this way, today and tomorrow, and most importantly… right now… we can choose the sure and steady transition from plastic to ever greener harmony with the cycles of life in our homes, companies, and communities.

]]>http://russs.net/and-now/feed/0Coffee time v1.4http://russs.net/coffee-time-v1-4/
http://russs.net/coffee-time-v1-4/#respondThu, 06 Sep 2018 21:09:49 +0000http://russs.net/?p=4029Ani and I are traveling extensively these few weeks through eastern Indonesia. We are sharing ecobricks in Moluku province. This morning, 5am, we are at the Ambon airport prepping to fly to Buru Island on a small plane. I just got my airport coffee — in my EarthCup v1.4.

The traveling is a great opportunity to field test this latest model that we just got from a master potter in Jogja. The craftsmanship is way up. And so too is the heat retention, the form factor and ergonomics. On the sides are two rubber grips (from old inner tubes) that really work well for holding the hot glass). It seems that after a few uses, this clay stops condensing and breathing out the sides (which quickly cools the coffee), which was a problem we had before. There are still details to work on, and heat retention isn’t quite as good as an impermeable plastic/paper frankencup (my term for the classic Starbucks or McD takeaway cup) but the design is definitely moving forward.

My friend Til will be using a Bali produced Earthcup for an upcoming festival where his cafe company will have a booth. So, we have even more field testing on the way.

Ani and I recently did a little interview in Semarang, Java, Indonesia on NET TV, a local station. The crew did a fantastic job on the interview — it covers all the essentials of ecobricking. A big thanks to my friend George and his company Bambooku for the bamboo clothes that I am wearing, to the Marimas company for flying us to Semarang to do the presentation, and to Matoa for the wooden watch (alas, they cut the part where I talk about how advanced Indonesia is with organic technologies).

Well, Ani and I tried to have a little vacation. We went to a beautiful lake in the center of Bali, where the altitude, plants and ecology reminded me so much of the Filipino Cordilleras. Alas, there was also a lot of plastic kicking around. A LOT. In the ditches, on the road, in the fields, everywhere. On a little stroll to the shore, we stumbled on a group of mountain guides taking a break from their sunset morning hike with the tourists. They reminded me so much of my mountain guide friends back in Sabangan and Sagada, we got talking. It turns out that they had recently converted the land from an informal dumpsite, to a bamboo hut camp site. I was impressed and I couldn’t help myself… “Hey guys… have you ever heard of ecobricks?” After a little description, Ani and I were taken aback by their enthusiasm. The guides were overjoyed to learn about how they could take care of their plastic. Before we knew it, the entire crew had gathered around to learn. As the men started picking up cigarette butts from around their camp, their little boys shortly followed suit– without anyone asking them to. In an hour of inter-generational activity, they had picked up all the plastic, cigarette butts, wrappers, straws and more that were kicking around, and emptied the garbage bin of plastic.

]]>http://russs.net/vacation-ecobricking/feed/0Platonic Emancipationhttp://russs.net/platonic-emancipation/
http://russs.net/platonic-emancipation/#respondTue, 31 Jul 2018 07:48:00 +0000http://russs.net/?p=3975The quest for ever more free and empowered living is at the heart of the human journey. Both existential and social, the road to ever more authentic emancipation winds through human history- from the escape of the Israelites from the Egyptians, to the American Revolution, to the movements of Ghandi and Martin Luther King for racial, gender and class equality. In our quest for empowerment through equality, we have arrived on the door step of the most profound emancipation of all– transcending equality altogether and moving into a new age of passion powered, acceptance based, cocreativity.

For the last century, we have struggled to level the inequalities between men and women inherited from ancient religions and archaic tradition. We have tried to raise one gender up, and bring another down. Alas, in this battle to emancipate the feminine from the long and heavy legacy of patriarchal oppression, we have ignored one fundamental fact.

To the extent that the feminine is oppressed, so too is the masculine. The dynamic of oppressor and oppressed are two sides of the same coin — a singular and shared phase in human evolution. The conscious oppression of the feminine is in fact a subconscious oppression of the masculine. The oppression of the feminine creates and equal but opposite oppression of the masculine.

One summer afternoon, cycling through the streets of an Italian town, I saw it with vivid clarity. Italy is well known for its deeply entrenched Catholicism, and its traditions of patriarchy. Earlier that day, I had listened to the stories of the challenges women faced in their town whilst attempting to escape the gravity of gender roles. However, that late summer afternoon, as the day cooled, and sun set, it was the village men that I observed.

On the side of the road, in the shade of elegant balconies, the men of the town were gathered like dead kings on stone thrones. Sitting listlessly in the afternoon, they were drinking, smoking and doing much of nothing. Despite the veneer of pleasant routine, I saw in their eyes, the drooping postures and engorged bodies, the despair of souls immobilized, muted and numbed by their very power and dominance. They were trapped, confined by their ‘power’, imprisoned by comfort and command as much as the women I had listened to that morning.

Any true emancipation of the oppressed must also see and empathize with the despair, fear and insecurity of the oppressor. If we consider the full, splendid and passion-filled possibility of liberated humanity, to be in a position of dominance over others is far down on the ladder of self-realization, joy and sheer human potential. Rather than strive to rise up to the level of an oppressor (or to bring him down) we must first see with clarity (and indeed empathy) their despair. It is only then that we can transcend the cycle of oppresion in ourselves.

A single gender emancipation also supposes that a quantifiable equality is possible. This is often envisioned as some sort of platonic state of equality, where women and men are all but indistinguishable in roles and being.

Yet, such a vision is a grey shadow in comparison to the vibrant rainbow of fully expressed sexuality and gender expressions. There is just no way to quantify the rainbow of talent, spirit and character that manifests itself in the modes of the masculine and feminine.

Instead, it is time for the mutualemancipation of men and women into dynamic partnerships that harness the combined power of their unique sexualities. This applies most to those partnerships where the mix-and-match and polarity of sexualities ignites the fires of attraction and love.

Rather than striving to transcend this sexual energy in one’s relationship with the other genders, one accepts, embraces and harnesses it. The attraction, love and sexual charge become the three fuels that then power the creative potential of the relationship.

For thousands of years sexual energies and attraction have navigated our gender roles, whether patriarchal or matriarchal. Male and female have come together, bound in their mind forged manacles for procreation. And so the species and the population have been furthered.

“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

We are at a point now, where population growth is as unnecessary as the manacles of gender oppression. Our planet is suffering under the weight of our mass unconsciousness. Problems and crises abound that cry for our creativity. It is time to move from the problem into the solution.

Conscious of the dynamics at play, we can shift our sexual energy to co-creation — birthing new ideas, insights, adventures and innovations. Rather than combining our genes, we can combine our geniuses to conceive lovingly and passionately crafted intentions.

By the very fact we are embodying our own platonicemancipation, these co-creations will be the loving healing that our planet so needs.